perfSONAR User Q&A and Other Discussion

[Chris Welti <>]

Hi Rafael!

Excellent suggestion, that's what I'm looking for as an "end-user".

Regards,
Chris

Rafael Costa wrote:
> Greetings to you all,
> 
> I have a suggestion.
> 
> At the time i was developing the NeTraMet Collector i experienced some
> users with the same problem (the install of pre-requisites at Linux is
> sometimes boring and hard to some people).
> 
> So, i decided to create a big "tar.gz" package called
> NeTCollectorServer.tar.gz . This package comes with a shell (bash)
> script (developed by myself) that installs automatically all the
> dependencies (pre-requisites) of NeTCollector, set all the environment
> variables and then install the tool itself.
> 
> These dependencies was:
> - JDK
> - Jakarta
> - Axis
> - Java SNMP Package
> - MySQL Connector
> 
> Maybe it would be great (if it's possible) to do the same with perfSONAR.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Rafael
> 
> On 8/17/06, *Loukik Kudarimoti* 
> <
> <mailto:>>
>  wrote:
> 
>     Hi Warren,
> 
>     Warren Matthews wrote:
>     > Hi All
>     >
>     > I hate to whine but Eric and Jeff say I should call it feedback and
>     > send it to the list.
>     >
>     > We've had a terrible time with perfSONAR. I want to give up. Actually
>     > we haven't even made it to trying to install perfSONAR. We haven't
>     > even got the prerequisites installed yet.
>     >
>     > The real problem is we have no java expertise. I'm trying to get
>     > another student but that'll be at least a few more weeks. The other
>     > problem is we have to run RHEL. It is mandated by our director;
>     > Unfortunately our site license does not include the application server
>     > channel, so we don't get tomcat. Frankly, we're also not really
>     > interested in understanding the packages and being experts on various
>     > server software tools. We're network support staff, we want to measure
>     > and trouble-shoot the network. Trying to get perfSONAR set up has
>     been
>     > a real pain.
>     >
>     > Perhaps you will say we should wait for better documentation. But we
>     > would like to be an early adopter because we need to offer monitoring
>     > services for our global campus. I would like to use perfSONAR so in
>     > future we can use data from other networks. Furthermore I claim most
>     > network admins are not going to try as hard as we did. If it doesn't
>     > just work they won't use it.
>     >
>     Many thanks for your feedback. As Szymon, Eric and Jeff have mentioned
>     before, it is extremely important that we receive feedback so that we
>     can improve the quality of what we produce.
> 
>     To understand your situation and to try to help you in solving it, I
>     have some questions and comments below.
> 
>     * Understanding Java
>     As Szymon mentioned, perfSONAR 1.0 does not expect the user to be aware
>     of Java. In fact, perfSONAR installation scripts are written in perl and
>     that is what the installer/admin will be using. Of course, Java (JDK)
>     installation is required but all software applications require the
>     installation of some compiler/interpreter. So, there is not much
>     difference with perfSONAR.
> 
>     Are you having problems installing Java?
>     Since you are using RHEL, Java installation (if not already
>     pre-installed) should be fairly trivial I thought. Please correct me if
>     I am wrong. Nevertheless, I thought installing Java has been made fairly
>     simple by Sun and most system administrators/users shouldn't have a
>     problem with it.
> 
>     * Application server
>     Is installing Tomcat the problem or is it true of all Application
>     Servers?
> 
>     An application server capable of handing Java applications is a
>     necessity in order to use perfSONAR as perfSONAR provides a Web Service
>     Interface. Apache Tomcat is one of the most famous Application Servers
>     and hence we have decided to use it for now and our default installation
>     guide assumes that you would use Tomcat.  If you cannot install tomcat
>     but can install some other Application Server (such as Jetty),  it
>     should be still be possible to user perfSONAR. If so, please let us know
>     and we can help you as some of us have experience with such servers
>     as well.
> 
>     But if RHEL is stopping you from installing any application server,
>     can't you install it as a user (and not root)?
> 
>     * Documentation
>     While the installation documentation being provided has greatly
>     improved, I can understand that sometimes somethings can still be
>     difficult. If you found such sections in our installation documentation,
>     please let us know and we will try to improve it.
> 
>     If you are talking about other documentation (such as developer), I
>     agree. But this shouldn't stop you from installing perfSONAR right?
> 
>     * perfSONAR is hard to use
>     As Szymon mentioned, it would be very helpful to us if you specify which
>     part/s were/are hard to use. Is it the installation of pre-requisites or
>     is it the configuration?
> 
>     We really like early adopters and we want to make sure nothing
>     discourages them from installing perfSONAR. :)
> 
>     Regards,
>     Loukik.
> 
>     >
>     > Warren Matthews, International Research Network Initiatives,
>     > Georgia Institute of Technology.
>     >
>     > Adventure is a sign of incompetence. If you have an adventure, you're
>     > doing something wrong. If you really plan things out then you
>     don't have
>     > adventures - The great polar explorer Vilhjalmur Stefanson.
>     >
> 
> 
>